CAS turns dreams into reality
In 2013, China-Philippines relations were at a low tide. Given the geographical neighborhood, time-honored exchanges and close economic relations between China and the Philippines, however, Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jianhua held a firm belief that the Chinese embassy should try its utmost to keep the China-Philippines friendship warm so as to secure a solid foundation for the turnaround of bilateral relations in the future.
Hence, the embassy staff reached out to the grassroots of the Philippines to care for the livelihood of marginalized groups and common people. Among all their efforts, what stood out was the setting up of the Chinese Ambassador Scholarship (CAS) to help outstanding but impoverished Filipino students realize their dreams.
Since the end of 2013, the CAS started granting scholarships to selected students from the Philippine Normal University (PNU) and the University of the Philippines (UP).
In November 2013, super typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) struck the Philippines, causing widespread devastation. The number of typhoon victims reached 11.8 million. After visiting the disaster area, Zhao decided to set up additional scholarships to help students in the disaster-stricken areas return to the campus.
Now, the CAS has become one of the most popular scholarships in PNU. Some 120 students have benefited from it. Karl Solimpo is one of them. “When I was a teenager, my dream was to become a teacher. And I am thankful for the Chinese Ambassador Scholarship for helping me realize my dream,” he said.
After all the hard work, Solimpo is now a lecturer on Environmental and Earth Science at Grace Christian College, a Chinese school near Malacañang.
“Now, I often share my story with my students so that they would know that China’s friendship with the Philippines is solid and substantial,” he said.
Another university where the CAS has turned dreams into reality is UP.
The CAS is the only ambassador-named scholarship in UP, according to UP Scholarship and Student Affairs Office director Niel Kenneth Jamandre.
UP has also set up a CAS Fund to make full use of the annual income of the P5-million scholarship as subsidies to help more students.
In addition, Jamandre said that the establishment of the CAS “has attracted more teachers and students to pay attention to China and make a more objective and independent judgment of what the Sino-Philippine relationship really is.”
Ruth Abegail Licong, 19, is a third-year mass communication student in UP. She is interested in pushing forward the cultural exchanges among Asian countries.
In the past four years, the CAS has invested nearly RMB1.9 million into universities such as UP and PNU. Some 178 impoverished Filipino students with excellent academic performance were funded by the scholarship.
Currently, among 92 Chinese schools, there have been 140 outstanding high school students who received a scholarship of P20,000 per year and 220 impoverished students who received a fellowship of P10,000 per year.